Linux Ultimate Gamers Edition Launches New Feature-Packed Image File

Linux Ultimate Gamers Edition has launched their 5.8 ISO, and you can currently download it from SourceForge and Softpedia if you’re interested in trying out a huge cross section of heavy-hitting applications that GNU/Linux has to offer. Users who have been involved with Linux for some time might remember Ubuntu Ultimate, which is the distro that Linux Ultimate Gamers Edition is based on.

Boutique distros have a reputation for coming with only a small number of applications and having repositories that aren’t as well stocked as those like Arch or Linux Mint. Ultimate Gamers seriously challenges that assumption. Since it’s based on Debian and Ubuntu, users can install a large number of applications if they’d like to.

On top of this, it comes with out-of-the-box support for nearly any kind of multimedia file that a gamer would ever want to play. While the MATE desktop environment isn’t theoretically as light as Xfce4 or LXDE, it’s still lean enough to run well on many types of configurations.

Gamers will probably be running this distro on fairly healthy hardware anyway, making MATE perfect for this specific use case. It also comes with dozens of applications gamers and A/V fans will need. Most importantly, it comes with Wine pre-loaded, which is extremely important for those who want to run popular online games.

New patches make it easy to play these kinds of multi-user titles on GNU/Linux, which should help to increase Gamers Edition’s popularity. It also comes with all of the following packages installed by default:

• MPlayer

• Mencoder

• VLC Media Player

• Amarok Music

• Inkscape

• EasyTag

• Quanta Plus

• Bluefish

Qemu’s virtualization package is included with the new 64-bit ISO, which may please retro gamers looking to run an instance of Windows 95 or another older operating system inside of a virtual machine to play older titles that just won’t work with modern computers.

Two interesting includes were gFTP and KVirc, which make it seem as though the chief developer, TheeMahn, is really targeting a hardcore gamer demographic well understood by this distro. gFTP can transfer saved games and software easily. KVirc gives Ultimate the ability to connect to IRC channels out of the box. Combined with maybe Discord deployed in a browser, this should help to keep everyone in a guild in touch.